“Luna…” his haunted eyes dart from each one of us. “Something’s not right with her. Luna!” He calls, and then scrambles to get out from behind the coffee table. We all jump to our feet and follow him to her door, waiting as he knocks on it and calls her name. Jules pushes him aside when there’s no answer and grips the doorknob, cursing when it doesn’t turn in his hand.
“Fuck! It’s locked.”
A cold shiver races down my spine and then there’s a muffled crash from behind the door that has me shoving him aside and slamming my shoulder into the door. Two more hits and it pops open. I hit the light switch in the dark room but Luna’s nowhere in sight. Torrin dashes past me to the door to her bathroom and knocks on it.
“Luna? Love? Are you alright?”
We all exchange worried looks when there’s only silence to be had. My heart starts racing as dread slides along my skin. My voice tears as I roar, “Open it! Open the door!”
Torrin swings the bathroom door open, and there’s a beat of frozen, terror-filled silence when we all see Luna slumped on the floor, half leaning against the tub. He rushes into the room, drops to his knees and scoops her up, but her head only rolls limply over his arm as he begs her to wake up. My eyes are frantic as they scan the small room, looking for what could have hurt her and zero in on the empty orange pill bottle. I lunge for it and lift it to my eyes as everything inside of me dies, along with her.
“Call an ambulance!” Torrin screams as tears roll down his face and he presses his hand flat against her chest, right over her heart.
Jules shoulders me against the counter as he grips my wrist tightly to see the bottle. His icy blue eyes fill with rage as he tosses my arm away and spins to Torrin and a limp Luna on the floor.
“It’ll take too long. Give her to me!” he snarls and rips her from Tor’s arms and rolls her so she’s face down. He holds her around the middle with one arm and pries her jaw with the other hand to get her mouth open and then viciously slams two of his fingers into her mouth and down her throat. Her limp body comes to life as it convulses against the intrusion and vomit pours out as Jules yanks his fingers out of the way. He studies the pool of bile on the floor and I see half-dissolved pills in the mess before he rams his fingers back down her throat and forces more vomit out of her.
Reid lets out such a sob of anguish behind me that all three of us look to him and see him on his knees with his forehead pressed to the floor as his body jerks with the force of his pain.
“Pl-please, don’t leave me,” he begs to the floor.
I’ve seen many versions of Julian Stillwell before. He has one of the biggest personalities I’ve ever known, not all for the good. But I’ve never seen this version of him. Those eyes of his are empty, blank, like everything that makes him… him - is gone and he’s just running on autopilot.
“Go start the car. We can get her there faster than an ambulance.” He tells me with no inflection in his tone.
I take one more look at Luna as he forces those fingers into her mouth for a third time and turn away, the plastic of the empty pill bottle cracks in my tight fist. I shove the bottle into my pocket and bend down and yank Reid to his feet and drag him from the doorway, pulling him with me out of her room.I do a quick detour to the living room and snag all four of our cell phones from the coffee table and force them into his hands, barking at him, “Call Gigi and Kara. Get them to meet us at the hospital!”
Giving him something else to focus on has some of the emotion clearing from his eyes, so I push him towards the garage door and move to the kitchen. I yank the junk drawer right out of the cabinet and it crashes to the floor, spilling all the contents everywhere. Don’t care. It makes it faster to spot the keys to the Escalade in the mess. We need a vehicle big enough to fit all of us as there’s no way we’ll be separating from each other right now.
By the time I get the garage door open and the car started, Jules and Torrin come flying through the house door behind us with Luna cradled in Torrin’s arms. They slide into the back seat, and as soon as the doors slam, I hit the gas. My gaze fights to stay on the road and not the rearview mirror to look at her. The drive feels like the longest of my life. There’s a constant chant running through my head as the kilometers disappear under the tires.
Don’t die, don’t die. I love you, I love you. Don’t die, don’t die.
Chapter 17 - Reid
I toss the phone down into the center console after ending the call to my sister. She’ll charter a flight and be here as soon as possible. I turn and reach into the back seat for one of Luna’s hands. Her skin is so fucking cold that I bring her fingers to my lips to try and breathe warmth into them. This is a nightmare. This can’t be happening. I can’t lose her. I can’t lose her, too. I want to scream at her, beg her not to leave me. It feels like something deep inside of me cracks and widens the longer she goes without opening her eyes.
Hate for myself fills me. This is my fault. I should have seen this coming. I’ve been where she is. That desperate hole of emptiness that you would do anything to escape. To end. I’ve made this choice before, myself. I should have been there for her!
A hand that I know almost as well as my own slides over our joined fingers and squeezes before those elegant fingers stretch and brush gently under the black leather cuff that covers the scar on my wrist. He saved me then, brought me back from that end,so of course he knows exactly what I’m thinking of. When I lift my eyes to meet his, I pull in a painful breath at what I see in those icy blues. Broken. Julian’s eyes are completely filled with how broken he is right now. And I know exactly what’s going through his mind. He's thinking that this is the second person who chosedeath over staying with him.
That crack in my chest widens a little bit more at knowing what that must be doing to him. Luna makes a small whimper, driving those thoughts from my head as my hand tightens on hers and my gaze zeroes in on her face. The car rocks to a stop and doors fly open as we scramble to exit. Gage starts yelling for help as soon as the emergency doors slide open. Nurses and doctors come running, pushing a gurney, and I know they’ll take her from us any second, so I turn and step in front of Torrin and lean over to press my head against her chest, right above her heart. I’m shoved away as she’s pulled from his arms and spread out on the gurney with medical personnel yelling out instructions. They push her down the hall through doors that close behind them, cutting off our view. I fall to my knees on the hard floor, brace my head in my hands, and focus on the one thing that will keep me from following her down into the darkness.
The sound of her heartbeat in the seconds I had with my ear against her chest.
Chapter 18 - Jules
I fucking hate this motherfucking hospital. So many shit things have happened here. This is where they brought Reid after… after. I can’t even bring myself to think about what he tried to do when we were thirteen, how powerless I felt when they took him away. I’m barely hanging on here. I can't add those memories, those feelings, to the mix. It will send me spiraling so hard there might not be a hospital left after I come down.
The harsh lights overhead, the smells and sounds of this place are like claws scraping down a blackboard in my mind. I fucking hate it here. I hate that yet another person I love has come here… broken. All the power and money in the world doesn’t mean shit when I can’t stop these things from happening. It makes my tightly held control fracture, and it makes me feel… feral to lose that. It scares me beyond reason - the thought of what would happen if I let that control escape me and let loose. Things would be destroyed, people would burn. So, I clamp it down and keep pacing the ugly tiles of the waiting room.
It's been hours since they took her from us, with only one quick update that told us she still lives. My gaze washes over the others and I clench my back molars to keep from cursing at the pain and fear they are all emitting. Waves of emotion that break against that control I hold so tightly. Elenor, Luna’s grandmother, clutches Reid’s hand tightly in hers like she knows he’s the one who needs the contact the most.
Torrin sits with elbows braced on his knees, his head held in his hands, and he hasn’t moved from that position since the nurse came out to tell us they had stabilized her. Gage leans against a wall behind the seats with a dripping ice pack held against the broken skin and swelled knuckles of his right hand. I think it was in the second hour of waiting that he punched the cinderblock wall, unable to contain the anguish inside.
I turn away and glance out the windows as the first blush of dawn streaks the sky. I should find it beautiful but I feel… nothing. Nothing matters, nothing is beautiful, if she isn’t in this world anymore.
“Luna Bolton’s family?”
